Microsatellite polymorphisms associated with human behavioural and psychological phenotypes including a gene-environment interaction.
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ABSTRACT: The genetic and environmental influences on human personality and behaviour are a complex matter of ongoing debate. Accumulating evidence indicates that short tandem repeats (STRs) in regulatory regions are good candidates to explain heritability not accessed by genome-wide association studies.We tested for associations between the genotypes of four selected repeats and 18 traits relating to personality, behaviour, cognitive ability and mental health in a well-studied longitudinal birth cohort (n?=?458-589) using one way analysis of variance. The repeats were a highly conserved poly-AC microsatellite in the upstream promoter region of the T-box brain 1 (TBR1) gene and three previously studied STRs in the activating enhancer-binding protein 2-beta (AP2-?) and androgen receptor (AR) genes. Where significance was found we used multiple regression to assess the influence of confounding factors.Carriers of the shorter, most common, allele of the AR gene's GGN microsatellite polymorphism had fewer anxiety-related symptoms, which was consistent with previous studies, but in our study this was not significant following Bonferroni correction. No associations with two repeats in the AP2-? gene withstood this correction. A novel finding was that carriers of the minor allele of the TBR1 AC microsatellite were at higher risk of conduct problems in childhood at age 7-9 (p?=?0.0007, which did pass Bonferroni correction). Including maternal smoking during pregnancy (MSDP) in models controlling for potentially confounding influences showed that an interaction between TBR1 genotype and MSDP was a significant predictor of conduct problems in childhood and adolescence (p?
SUBMITTER: Bagshaw AT
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5291968 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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